[Editorial] U.S. Attributes `My Fault` to `Your Fault`

The U.S. announcement to impose high 8-30 percent tariff on the imported steels clearly shows the direction of the U.S.`s unilateral foreign policies. Of course, the counterparts including Korea, EU, Japan, and Russia immediately protested against such measures, anticipating a hard trade fight between the related countries.

What a self-contradiction! The U.S. that has forced to open the doors of other countries crying out for the liberalization of trade is now strengthening its trade barrier. Who would think it is fair if a country forces other countries to open their markets on the one hand and closed its own market from other countries on the other hand?

The established theory is that the stagnation of the U.S. steel business was not caused by the export rush of the foreign companies but by themselves, who ignored the international trend to continue large scale merges and therefore ended up with the blossom of small factories with rugged facilities. In addition, excessive expenditures for pension and medical security aggravated the productivity of the U.S. steel business and finally 31 steel business companies have been bankrupted since 1998. The U.S. attitude bringing up the tariff barrier to protect their business companies that are supposed to be sacrifices for the restructuring according to the canon of globalization and neo liberalism driven by the U.S. is a typical behavior of attributing its fault to others.

The brutal selfishness of George W. Bush who tries to sacrifice foreign business for GOP`s winning of the off-year election cannot be accepted. He might need to beg for more votes in the center areas of steel business such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia but it is very coward to attribute the responsibilities of the U.S. to foreign countries.

Korean government must firmly stand against the U.S.`s unreasonable measures. The government must express a firm stance of Korea at the bi-lateral negotiation and must follow every step to protest such as an appeal to WTO in cooperation with EU and Japan.